DCC #30

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fathead
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DCC #30

Post by fathead »

Evil. Tempting me with a sequel!!

Can we have any details on the sequel contained in the "tournament in a box"?
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Post by ynnen »

All I can tell you is... if you made your way through the entire tournament and thought your party could saunter back to town, well... think again. You broke into the Vault. Now you've got to make your way back out!

I was thrilled to be able to write a sequel to help wrap up the epic storylines presented in the tournament module, as well as offer players some additional fun and excitement in this very challenging, grueling and dare I say diabolic adventure!?
Crypt of the Devil Lich, Dungeon Interludes, The Mask of Death, Adventure Begins, Vault of the Dragon Kings, the Power Gamers Wizard Strategy Guide, The Adventure Continues, Palace in the Wastes and PhoenixCrawl Open
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Post by fathead »

ynnen wrote:All I can tell you is... if you made your way through the entire tournament and thought your party could saunter back to town, well... think again. You broke into the Vault. Now you've got to make your way back out!
Very cool. Any chance that the PCs will have to endure the treck back through the frozen waste? Something that always intrigued me about the beginning of Vault was the hint of what they endured to GET there.
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Re: DCC #30

Post by Losloris8 »

I am looking at this adventure as the next place we shall go, but get stuck wondering what am I missing. It has been mentioned in several places that this is a sequel. To what?

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

Does anyone have a write of of their campaign that goes through this module?

It looks awesome, having glanced through a bunch of times, but it is nice to see how others have done before I do.

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

Phew, that was a slog.

You can find someone's adventure through the VofDK here:

http://usandacat.com/thelair/category/g ... iritstorm/

Just scroll down to Epic Tale #12.

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

Okay, read through this a few times. Gonna make the ultimate bad guy Cryonax the ice cold Archomentals, as opposed to any dragon. Cryonax and his side kick Derryn have/are taking over this ancient dragon temple to feed off of its magic.

This allows room for the back story to be useful and for a decent fit into our larger campaign. My hesitation is that fighting an archomental as a 9th level party could be deadly. I'm thinking there should be some space between meeting the two foes.

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

I am continuing to prepare for this module and would appreciate any suggestion regarding the horns.

What happens when you blow one, two, all?

I am looking for any good suggestion. This affect could/should be relevant to the Dragons; could/should be beneficial.

Or, it could have something to do with the elemenatals, Cryonax and such.

An idea that just floated thru the synapsis would be to have someone like Obi-Wan-Kenobi appear and offer some type of portent.

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Re: DCC #30

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The party returned with their tale of success and woe to the Titan Maladoconious (Doc for short - a joke I like as Titans are generally not short). The had made the greatest advances known through the Fane and had fallen just short of success.

So now, what to do. Khalil (Thf 10) came forward with all of the adventures he & Dorminder had enjoyed regarding the Eye of the Night; that he had recovered some telescope items and given these to his guild; recovered more items and decided that he should not give these to his guild, and, that perhaps everything would be best in the hands of the Council of Elders in NorthEnding. Embla (Ftr 8) was inclined to bring the Olympic rings from the Sunless Garden (which could summon Ogremoch, the earthen archomental) to the hands of Good Sister Karoline of the Council of Elders.

However, Rhiannon (Drd 8) mentioned that while the party was enjoying the Fane of the Egg, she busied herself trying to figure out the Olympic Rings (she could not, Wasabi Pea (MU 7) could). Doc had approached her to find out what's the what with the Snirfiblin (DCC 43, I could not take the spelling/name business in that module and so called them Snirfiblin). Insodoing, Rhiannon found a room at the end of everything that provided a permanency affect; she can now speak any language. And how that room had a portal through which she saw a totally different range of mountains. Way up, she saw a white dragon flying into a batcave which was, from R's perspective, up a 150' sheer rock wall of ice. This sounded enticing, and, Doc was completely oblivious to this portal. Doc also made plain that he is now older, a little slower, and way less inclined to be out adventuring. Could you take care of that, he asked?

The party ventured into the mountains, into the Snirfiblin lair, found the room that granted permanency affects and got nothing out of the deal. The portal did open up revealing a totally different mountain scape that what should be there. Ahead was a sheer wall 150 feet tall with a dragon looking right down upon us. This dragon is the dragon that is cut into the batcave. Man did it freak the party out. To save wind, the party attacked the dragon head and the dragon tail and then realised after the fact that both were a total waste of time and energy. They party is currently stopped at the front door. Rather than have all four dragon heads breath down, which I find severe, only the heads that are not in the right position breath. They have been hit once and are now looking more closely at the text clues.

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

OMG is this the most verbose module ever! Everything is nicely but overly detailed. It becomes difficult to find and connect information. That notwithstanding, I like the lay of the land.

As noted thru previous posts, this campaign is focused upon the Archomentals, as started thru the Egg of the Phoenix module. My intent in using the Vault of the Dragon Kings is to have the party discover the ancient temple to the Dragon Kings has been usurped by the followers of Cryonax, who have set up a portal to the elemental plane of evil cold creatures. So, starting at the front door with the four dragon heads, everytime they try the door with the levers not in the correct position one of the heads will blast cold. Should they get past the gears that are the gateway to the valley beyond, the valley will have signs of frost, the pool with have a thin skin of ice, and so on.

Also, I like the visual candy and appreciate that some images are easily found on line, such as the castelan

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

I have been a little confused in reading about the gears that are the gateway to the rest of the adventure.

When the party gets passed the doorway with the four dragon heads they see this and that, and, hear the whirring of the gears. Then there is the castellan who has a key (see picture above) that I thought was used to turn the gears off; and then, there are the four rooms in which the party is to do something to active, to turn on, the gears(?).

In light of this, I opted to have the gears whirring and the rooms are used to turn individual gears off so that they are stationary which allows one to pass through to the other side. This turning off should be an easy thing to do if you know how, so that you have an effective gate that allows in all who know how.

If you have read my previous posts yo will note that I am not a fan of the you open the door and get blasted scenarios/traps. I like for there to be a chance to not get blasted, but if you fail, blast away.

So, I made two puzzles and two easy pass throughs. Working with the four elements from the door dragons; ice, fire, electricity and acid. For each I changed the shape of the room so that there was a challenge in the opening space, shimmering veil in the back part wherein a mechanism is housed that will turn off a particular cog. So, let's say a 50 x 50 space and a veil that partitions a space of say 30 x 30.

The Acid one is a pass through. It will be clear this is the acid room. The floor is a multi coloured mosaic, the colours reflecting some types of dragons. The easy way is to walk on any except the brown (steer clear of the brown acid). For each brown step that is trod upon a nasty acid beast will appear beyond the veil that must be dealt with in order to flick the switch to stop the cog.

A tough one is for ice. Again, multi-tyled floor, each with letters. walking on the first block one immediately notices that you slide to the end of the line. My son mentioned something about a room like this for pokimon(?). So, spelt out on the floor are various iterations of north, east, south, west along with colours of dragons. Let's say the Ice dragon is the one that is represented by the East ing. Fine. Spell out east and the veil disappears.


I really appreciate the amount of puzzles DCC incorporates and so am happy to follow along in kind.

We play on saturday.

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

We had a great session, in many ways.

A good part of our time was spent situating our players in their geopolitical environment. This was far more elaborate than I had anticipated. Basically, they went back to Doc's Island to think about the portal that lead to all of this dragon stuff. Basically. I will save you a bunch of tire kicking time spent to get right to the nub. The reason we are on Doc's Island is because a fair chunk of our gain has been spent playing the Egg of the Phoenix. One of the characters, Trouv Tou, put a pair of twos together to point out that we did Flax the silver dragon a great service yb retrieving the lost potions of silver dragon control. So, what if we call upon him for some info on the dragon thing.

Wow. As DM this one caught me by surprise.

Flax was happy to be called and provided them two questions that he would answer. For the first the party asked about the Council of Elders and the assassination of McKracken (I like this name better than what was provided). I will not bore you with that information now. The second was basically, what's the what with these dragons. Flax came back with how this 'plane' is the mystical burial ground for the great dragons, the place where great dragons go, if they can, to be well received regardless of their alignment/disposition to retire their spirit from this plane of existence, a kind of United Dragons where none will be turned away. Flax could not answer anything about what was inside, and, though he was excited at its discovery, did not wish to go as the place is so revered amongst his kind that it is not for tourists, like him. Finally, he did give the party a ring which they could use to (phone) him twice should they get stuck.

So, back up through the land of the snirfiblin, simple peasant folk in the hills away from Doc's Island, through the cave system of the Curse of the Barrens, through to the temple room and up the cliff (flying, carpet, shape change). We had made friends with the stone dragon that guards the front door, healing back the damage we had caused. back at the front door and this time, plenty more methodical in trying one lever at a time. I was gonna blast them if they took too much time, but, in reasonable order they figured out to get all of the heads to be up.

We explored the central hallway a plenty, were fired upon by the skeletal lizard guys (completely forgetting that undead do not see and are not affected by invisibility), met and bested the castellan (did not notice the key around his neck even after I twice showed the image), found the huge gear passage way (the source of noise) and decided to check out the individual rooms. The first one was the red room. Inside was a tall table (the flat of the table was at 8 feet) upon which there was a caldron on a burning oil type substance, a ladle, and some saucers, all quite big). There, after a space was a very tall trelice, space, another table with a few piles of the large saucers. The aim was to get the party to place some of the burning oil on a saucer and carry it through the trelice. A simple thing if you knew that was what you had to do. They did not. And, while trying to figure it all out, Embla the dwarf used the rug of flying she had found in the Mud Sorcerer's place and was promptly shrunk into the fabric of the rug! (first time in some time I have used a trapped treasure).

As they were fuddling about with this (passage of time) a figure appeared behind the shimmering veil. Ultimately, they shaped stone to by pass the veil, battled the bad guy, flipped the switch and discovered that stopped one of the cogs.

The session ended with the party check out each of the three other rooms (I will describe these later) and realising they do not have enough spells to bypass things.

Really great session and many bonus points for Trouv Tou and that one.

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Re: DCC #30

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Here are a few thoughts, in advance of our next session that happens on Saturday.

I like and will gladly take advantage of any good idea. DCC modules are chalk full of good ideas and are easily twisted to meet a specific need. The VofDK is well put together with several neat concepts. The overarching paradigm is not compatible with my storyline. No matter. I decided to have the VofDKs lead by four dragon kings. This matches well with the four heads at the front door, which works well with the four puzzle rooms, which works well with the four giant cogs. I figure this gives a decent chance for the party to figure things out, that patterns become apparent.

For my needs I chose: North, Red, Rasamistigar; East, White, Snowflake; West, Black, Noireau; South, Blue, Felzapra.

The puzzles in their respective rooms relate to their type. I have tried to make them easy, the puzzles, so that they are only a slight bother, always with a mind to, once you know it it is easy to solve the puzzle, stop the gears and walk through into the valley. One puzzle has (very basically) large saucers, a vat of naphtha with ladle. All you have to do is pour some naphtha on the saucer, walk through the trellis and then deposit your saucer on the table on the other side. Only complication from the party's perspective that I see is size as everything is big (for the dragons). Second puzzle, same idea but electric eels. The third and fourth are a little different in the same way. Black is acid. There are blocks like a brick floor between here and there. All of the bricks are coloured like the colours of dragons. Get from here to there with stepping on the brown bricks (watch out for the brown acid - bahahaha). The last is a floor of ice with a bunch of random letters and little walls. With every step you slide to the next little wall. The goal is to specifically spell anything related to a dragon; W, H, I, T, E or any such. Many possibilities to spell dragon things on six glides. Start the seventh and you pop back to the front door. With all rooms, the more time you take or tries you fail another bad guy of a type associated with that colour dragon appears for battle.

Next thing; the space in the valley (section 2) is too short by half. The description says 100 feet from here to there. Large dragons would cross that gap in too short an order. Further, the tight space does not really allow for each encounter to have space. I made the distance 300 feet, a football field.

Lastly for the moment, in doing some research to help flesh out the bad guy that is the crux of this campaign, Tharizdun, I came across references to the effect of an elemental eye. This fit in well with outside reading, specifically the one who watches from below, that has an interesting thing. I am looking to make the bad guy, the Sauron of our world a little more tangible. And so, as the party crosses back and forth in section 1-4 of VotDKs I intend to have a few eyeballs in the floor that can be noticed.

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

Currently sucking gin with cheeses and olives on the side; a fine place from which to describe what went on last night.

It is super rewarding to have the party at a point where they work like a team. The goal was to solve the four puzzles to flick the four switches to turn off the four gears to see what lay beyond. They used a levitation spell to get the electric eels from one tank to the other in the blue room; eventually guessed correctly to avoid the brown acid while getting to the other side in the black room. And, when they finally announced trying to spell something letters stayed alit as they slid across in the white room. The four gears stopped, the valley waited.

The air was crisp, damage taken from the brittle air. First up the pool, the black ooze and a third dragon horn. It was at this point the party understood the symmetry of four in this environment; four heads at the door, four room, four gears, four necklaces found in the castellan's room. There must be four horns. For blowing the horns I have so far given them five temporary hit points x 2, and a solid feeling of good cheer. Their knowledge perception is increased as well. (I will have players roll into + wish + level to see if they notice things - this now has pluses).

They checked out and tried to camp out in the dealer, but the third time skeletons erupted from the ground gave them cause to leave, ultimately retreating to the castellan's room as spells were next to nil left. The gears had resumed their whirring but a sensor stopped them for a pause when the party was on the way out

We checked the dragon skeleton, notice some dire wolves in the distance, and, stopped for the night on the verge of entering the hall of history.

My aim is to have the Keeper of the Ways ready to give the whole storyline away if asked the tight question. Already, the party anticipates the white dragon, Iceflash, is setting up a portal for Cryonax, the evil god of elemental cold, as we know where the three other Archomentals portals are. Odd that it is on Doc's island.

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Re: DCC #30

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Our next session is at the start of January, so there is time.

Here is what I'm thinking. The set up is for this place to be where the bad guys are setting up a portal for Cryonax, the cold archomental, to pass through. A lot of this is in flux in my mind, how to offer a good challenge within a realistic scenario.

So, we get down stair to section 3. Deryn is the lead, trying to tap into a huge vat of dragon ether in order to power his creation. The last piece of energy he needs is the huge white dragon the party initially saw. That dragon is currently (as the party walks in) trapped into some type of Frankenstein device designed to suck his essence away. Deryn looks to be rather formidable, plus the giant ghost, plus the two giant zombies and the four other guys. Just that is hundreds of hp!

The party will catch the scene, the dragon trapped up, many barbarian troglodytes helping Deryn. A chance to befriend another dragon, which may equal out to just more storyline information.

Alternately, I just can not abide by the room by room solitary encounters. Each occupant downstairs midst know of each other, and, here is a way to have them work in concert.

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Re: DCC #30

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We stopped last time at the doorway for the Keeper of the Ways, the blind chap who paints the history of the VotDK. He is so proficient that he has already outlined painting what happened yesterday.

Yesterday was the distinct sensation that the partnership between the Arch Mage Derryl and the large White Dragon (name momentarily forgotten) who was Darryl's ticket in here; that partnership was over. The KotW could feel the spirit of the large Drake fade away.

I will not make the KotW fight the party as he more beneficial as a role playing piece. I understand about this module being competative, but we are adventuring. Hopefully, the party will see his neutrality and engage him to learn of who is where.

For my storyline to work the king of the north will not be there, in 2-7, not at all. The three draconic guys with the ice basalisk will be in 2-7, and, a few foot soldiers will be at 2-6.

Ultimately, Derryl will be trying to tap into the ether from the Well of Wisdom to power a portal for Cryonax, the evil cold archomental. The party is just becoming 9th level. Soon they will have to battle the archomentals head on.

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Re: DCC #30

Post by losloris »

Well now, that was different.

We met the KotW and had a good chat. He told of the evil white dragon, Snowstorm, who came and killed the maintenance staff, and, brought an evil mage, and, how it was much colder now, and, something is happening with the dragon ether at the Pool of Dreams.

The party ended up revealing how they had three dragon horns, played them and received a benefit. All good, until someone asked about Tharizdun. That ended the conversation.

Wasabi cast a locate object as we searched around for the fourth horn, which was found in the dragon reliquary with the Spector. The KotW indicated the pool was down through the main cave entrance. Into that hallway, made with pillars before the steps so as to hide a group of troglodyte guards. Twelve of them we laid waste to.

Got to the doors. (I liked how the doors were tall and thus required new ways to be opened). A grappling hook and rope gave Khalil the chance to pull the left one open. We could see one of the three big trogs, and a new battle started. When Trouv Tou pulled open the right door there stood the basalisk! Three of us were turned to ice. We paralyzed the basalisk and ultimately bashed it into smithereens. However, the big trog with the big hammer rushed amongst us. We had two good rounds to deal with him but did not. He got to the ice form of Khalil and smashed him out of existence! And, with him went all that he carried; a dragon horn, the rod of Hiirward that controls elementals.

We slew them all but recoiled in shock at our loss. This was the first major character loss in three years.

Onward. Without being minutely descriptive, we had four hours left from the effects of the three horns. Must find pool!

Rhiannon used a locate water spell which lead us right to the pool of dreams, where Derryl was setting up a contraption designed to suck the energy so as to open a portal to the plane of evil cold creatures. We zapped and blasted, as did he. But our guns were more than his and we held the floor.

Okay, time to make a call to Flax to let him know what was up. While Rhiannon concentrated on that process in came four ninjas bent on kicking us about. Which they did very well. Down went Elrick. Down went Wasabi. In full panic mode Rhiannon asked Flax for help.

Ultimately, the three other survivors ran to touch Rhiannon and Flax teleported us to him, leaving the two bodies and all of their kit behind.

I can provide more of the particulars on the setting, but, three PCs gone, the portal was busted by the blowing of the fourth horn, and, we are now back with Doc the Titan wondering where do we go from here.

DCC 30 is a really good adventure. The module is through the roof verbose but the setting offers plenty of opportunity for hack n sack, role playing, cool puzzles, and, smart strategy. My players were not upset at the loss of characters as each happened in a cool way, and, all appreciated that you can't always have the easy win. This was a party win but almost feels like an overtime loss.

Losloris
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